


growing pains

by emberysing



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Character Study, Claws, Gen, Growing Pains, Pre-show era, because I don't know how to write things with actual Plot, but like not happy either, catra deserves more love, catra is smol and hurt, i might have taken it a bit too far, me projecting my long-gone growing pains onto catra, not sad enough to be considered angst, tense is probably a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:23:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29687376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emberysing/pseuds/emberysing
Summary: Catra was sharp edges, thin and angled.People talked, where they think she couldn't hear them.Wild,they said. But for the most part, people started leaving her alone and stopped stealing her ration bars, and Catra tried to not let it bother her. She expected it, really.She didn't expect Adora.Adora was the opposite of sharp, she was… soft. And her smile warm.And Catra didn't know that someone could be light in that way, feel like so much like morning sunshine and not a harsh afternoon glare.Catra didn't mean to learn a little bit of peace because of it; a place of calm despite the violent fact of herself._________________And I guess the bad can get betterGotta be wrong before it's rightAnd I've always been a go-getterBut still the growing pains, growing painsThey're keeping me up at night(Alessia Cara)
Kudos: 19





	growing pains

Catra's fingers ached. She was seven, maybe, she doesn't remember much anymore, but she remembers itching at her growing claws and then rubbing at her fingers. Sometimes her claws would retract by accident during training, and it would throw her off because she was used to them always being there.

It felt strange, at first, but after a week or so she was able to retract them at will. It didn't help much with the aching, but at least she wasn't chastised for being distracted.

Looking back, Catra knows they were just growing pains, but she didn't know then and was near terrified of this unwarranted punishment. She remembers not knowing if something was wrong with her or was she _sick?_ Because sick was something _bad_ to be and you hoped to never be lying in bed at night shivering with heat in the freezing air. But that wasn't it for Catra, she wasn't sick, surely? The pains would go away in time, she told herself. They had to.

But during that time, she scratched at things, things that no one used and spare pieces of broken equipment. And then, by accident, someone else. They had bumped into her and she pushed them back but had forgotten to sheathe her claws. They had held their hand to their arm and spat insults but ran away.

A ribbon of scarlet, and Catra realizes that they won't stop chasing her but they do fear these ribbons, and so she keeps her claws out in between training sessions and in the hallways.

The colour red had never scared her.

It haunted her, actually. Not in the way that it fed on her fear in the corner of her mind, but in the way that the colour always hung onto a corner of her.

When she lies half-asleep at night sometimes the visions come, half-forgotten scenes of homes alit with the roaring red of fire. Catra tosses and turns but keeps quiet so her bunkmates wouldn't comment.

She was a small thing: probably smaller than the rest of the kids in her year, she noticed once, and somehow this seemed to be her fault, that she was the worst of them. But in the general building, they were all small, and while that put her on a level playing field, she was still that: small. The cadets didn't look kindly on the smaller children even though they were only young themselves, and force captains they all tried to avoid. She can fight, but she can't win against someone double her height. But this, this violence she held, was leverage.

Catra was sharp edges, thin and angled.

People talked, where they think she couldn't hear them. _Wild_ , they said. But for the most part, people started leaving her alone and stopped stealing her ration bars, and Catra tried to not let it bother her. She expected it, really.

She didn't expect Adora.

Adora was the opposite of sharp, she was… soft. And her smile warm.

And Catra didn't know that someone could be light in that way, feel like so much like morning sunshine and not a harsh afternoon glare.

Catra didn't mean to learn a little bit of peace because of it; a place of calm despite the violent fact of herself.

Catra puts her claws away around Adora, then, even when it hurts to retract them because they're sore. Most of the time anyway, when she feels herself drawn into Adora's horizon. Because Adora is something that Catra doesn't have the word to describe: she's comfortable, and around her, Catra's worries of if she's a little too small or a little too sharp aren't confirmed. Adora tells her she's not either and Catra isn't sure if she believes her, but the words make her a bit less scared that Adora will leave when she finds out that Catra is a little bit less than enough.

Catra's eleven before she finds a word for that feeling: _safety;_ but she's only seven when Adora promises that "nothing bad will ever happen as long as we're together", and Catra holds onto it with all of herself.

Catra's twelve before she learns the word _insecurity;_ so when she's seven and has a recurring thought of "what if Adora leaves" she unconsciously calls it _fear_ but doesn't want to acknowledge it.

Catra's eight when she's sorted into her team, and Adora's there too. Catra notices that people stop trying to pick her out, and she doesn't know if Adora contributes to part of it just by her presence. Catra's torn between feeling warm at the thought and indignant.

Catra's going to use her hands to get people to stay away if she needs to, but Adora's almost always been an exception. She scratches Adora that first time they met, but Adora doesn't leave and slowly, Catra finds that she doesn't want Adora to go away. She never asked why Adora didn't go away without a second glance that first time.

One time after that, her claws leave marks on Adora, and the blonde rubs the back of her hand against her cheek and sits down against Catra's side. Catra feels some ugly emotion curl within her and she feels bad enough and almost apologizes. "It's ok," Adora says when Catra opens her mouth to say _sorry_.

Catra tries to hold her irritation back and her claws retracted when Adora's around. Guilt follows her when the other girl spills scarlet, and it's an unfamiliar and uncomfortable feeling, so Catra doesn't want to draw any more red lines on Adora than she can help.  
After a while, blood-red and flaming vermillion aren't the only shades of red Catra thinks of anymore. _Red_ starts to mean the colour of Catra's mask, Adora's jacket and Catra's new uniform, the palette of the sunset they race under.

Catra's eight when the growing pains in her fingers fully go away.

Catra's eighteen when Adora leaves; and what remains is Catra with a phantom ache on her fingers, claws desperate to hold on to something that she lost.

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact! cats learn to sheathe their claws just before four weeks of age!  
> so, I might have stretched things and added the initial growing pains and shifted the learning to sheathe claws to a later age but magicats have no lore so I get to make the rules.


End file.
